Days are merry and bright for luxury goods retailers Whitehall Jewellers Inc. and Coach Inc. Both companies today forecast earnings for the Christmas quarter higher than analysts’ ratings.
Chicago-based Whitehall, which operates Whitehall Co. Jewellers and Lundstrom Jewelers, expects earnings of $1.04 to $1.08 per share, compared to 69 cents a year before.
Whitehall stock rose 13 percent in New York Stock Exchange trading, to close at $14.68. It was today’s top percentage gainer among Chicago-based retailers.
Hugh Patinkin, Whitehall chairman and chief executive, expects better results for the fiscal year, too, although he did not say how much better. Same-store sales for the quarter were down 1 percent, which Patinkin considered a good showing.
“Our disciplined approach to reducing our cost structure, improving merchandise gross margins, closing less productive stores, and reducing both inventory investment and debt levels, when combined with our Christmas performance, will result in higher earnings in fiscal 2001 than in fiscal 2000,” Patinkin said in a statement.
Brokerage house C.S. King & Associates raised its rating of Whitehall to “strong buy” on the news, from “accumulate.”
Sara Lee Corp. leather-goods spinoff Coach Inc. raised its expectations for the quarter to 96 cents a share, from 88 cents a year ago.
Coach sales rose 12 percent for the quarter and 15 percent for sales through indirect sales. While department stores such as Marshall Field’s carry Coach bags, the company attributed the indirect-sales rise to its Japan unit.
Analysts polled by Thomson Financial/First Call had been forecasting 90 cents per share for both New York Stock Exchange shares. Coach shares were down 3 percent, closing at $40.65.
Among other retail stocks, Minneapolis-based Best Buy, parent of the Best Buy and Sam Goody chains, raised its quarterly earnings target to $1.35 to $1.40 a share. Same-store sales for December rose 6 percent.
Thomson/First Call estimates had avereraged $1.27. Best Buy shares rose 0.5 percent to $75.16.
![Today’s Highlight in History: On April 24, 1995, the final bomb linked to the Unabomber exploded inside the Sacramento, California, offices of a lobbying group for the wood products industry, killing chief lobbyist Gilbert B. Murray. (Theodore Kaczynski was later sentenced to four lifetimes in prison for a series of bombings that killed three people and injured 29 others.) On this date: In 1877, federal troops were ordered out of New Orleans, ending the North’s post-Civil War rule in the South. In 1915, in what’s considered the start of the Armenian genocide, the Ottoman Empire began rounding up Armenian political […]](https://www.chicagotribune.com/wp-content/uploads/migration/2023/06/12/5LTPEE42BQ2O25ECG7SKBN4RV4.jpg?w=535 "Today’s Highlight in History: On April 24, 1995, the final bomb linked to the Unabomber exploded inside the Sacramento, California, offices of a lobbying group for the wood products industry, killing chief lobbyist Gilbert B. Murray. (Theodore Kaczynski was later sentenced to four lifetimes in prison for a series of bombings that killed three people and injured 29 others.) On this date: In 1877, federal troops were ordered out of New Orleans, ending the North’s post-Civil War rule in the South. In 1915, in what’s considered the start of the Armenian genocide, the Ottoman Empire began rounding up Armenian political […]")